Owen's first holy communion portraits.

Blurmore

This is my son Owen...he recently celebrated his first holy communion. These were all shot with an Alien Bee 800, vagabond mini, shoot thru umbrella (except the one on the steps which is natural light) and 60mm EF-S Macro on a 7D.

1. @Calvert Hall College



2.

@Cathedral of Mary Our Queen



3.

Dreadnote

I think these are quite nice...good job!

Little nits would be the tilt in #1, and the center column poking out of his head in #3, but all in all very nice.

Hackbone

Especially like the first two.....good stuff.

divamum

Love 'em all, but particularly the first one, Blur - really nice!! Your son is really a sweetheart of a boy - I don't remember seeing photos of him here before, although I sure remember your baby girl (she must be what, 5yo by now?!)

Blurmore

divamum wrote: »

Love 'em all, but particularly the first one, Blur - really nice!! Your son is really a sweetheart of a boy - I don't remember seeing photos of him here before, although I sure remember your baby girl (she must be what, 5yo by now?!)

4 going on 24...Thanks for the comments compliments. I guess the natural framing with the cathedral doors didn't QUITE work like I planned if people are bothered by him being centered on the middle of the doors, but this image looked dynamite on his 4x8 thank you card.

michaelglenn

Love that hat! Good shots overall, but I do have a nit with 1. I feel like this should be composed where he is to the right of the photograph. He is too dead center. The image needs to be straightened. Horizons are slightly off. Also the white statues and the tree to the left distract me away from the subject. Opening the aperture a stop would blur out these distractions and my eye would focus more on Owen.

Three is my favorite. I love how the light is hitting his face and his expression. It makes me wonder what he is thinking. I love the composition here too. Well done!

Blurmore

Thanks Michael, The straightening bothers a lot of people. For me, I only insist on straight in pictures that don't include people. Much of what, and why I did what I did in this picture had to do with location, and a desire not to get wet. The grass was just treated with pre-emergent weed granules, the little flags I took out and replaced, and it had just rained the day before, I wanted to keep him on the path. I too wanted to keep on the path to keep my knees and butt dry, but the path slopes down and to the left out of frame. I liked the lines between the statues with him completing, and using a short macro as a telephoto I'm not sure I could have blurred the statues more if I wanted to. I didn't really want to, because of the context. There is also a really ugly fence at the top of the hill in the background. Conditions (other than the light) were less than ideal, and my stand blew over too.

Blurmore

This is my straighter, square format framing of the similar scene.

Dreadnote

I think the challenge with number 1, and the number 1 alternate, is that there are too many "subjects". I certainly understand the desire to include the background for the sake of context, but your son kinda gets lost in the crowd. In this case I think less would have been more.